What is 'Absolute Proof'? MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's pro-Trump film on election fraud pulled from Vimeo, YouTube
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the few remaining sympathizers in corporate America, has been experiencing a torrid time in public life of late. But the 59-year-old businessman and election conspiracy theorist is in no mood to give up the fight yet. On Friday, February 5, he released a two-hour film ‘Absolute Proof’ pushing his conspiracy theories and claimed it was a cyberattack from China that flipped the 2020 presidential election.
However, Lindell’s film did not produce any proof supporting the alleged fraud in the election that went to President Joe Biden and only rehashed some of the same allegations that Donald Trump and his high-profile loyalists like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell pushed for months but yet failed to convince the courts to rule in the former president’s favor.
On the other hand, Lindell’s efforts showed by uploading the film to Vimeo and embedding the video player on his official website that he was testing the limits of other online platforms. But it was taken down.
RELATED ARTICLES
Why is Donald Trump permanently banned from Twitter? Parler glitch sparks jokes on POTUS' move to LinkedIn
Ted Cruz turns on Trump and slams his 'reckless' rhetoric on voter fraud, Internet says 'you can't wriggle out of this'
Late in January, Lindell was banned from Twitter according to a new policy that the social media giant enacted in the wake of the Capitol Hill protest on January 6 whereby people who repeatedly shared misinformation related to the election can be removed permanently from the platform. Trump himself also faced the same consequence.
Vimeo, YouTube remove film
Vimeo removed the film an hour after it was made public which shows how serious social media platforms have become in their efforts to combat misinformation surrounding the results of the 2020 presidential battle, the controversy around which has refused to die down. Lindell also uploaded his film to YouTube and embedded the version on his website.
Lindell first misspelled the film's title as 'Absolue Proof', which is a common tactic used by YouTubers trying to evade detection by the platform’s automated content system. However, the misspelling was eventually corrected and a few hours later, YouTube removed Lindell's film.
In a statement to Mashable, YouTube said: “Per our presidential election integrity policy, we remove content uploaded after the safe-harbor deadline that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. We removed this video in accordance with this policy.”
Third parties also kept on uploading Lindell’s film to mainstream platforms like YouTube throughout the day but they were also removed. However, the video expectedly found a shelter on right-wing platforms like Gab, CloutHub and Rumble.
But one conservative channel chose to distance itself from the content of Lindell’s film. He paid for multiple hours-long advertising spots on One America News Network (OANN) for airing the film four times throughout the day and several times throughout the weekend, totaling 13 times but the network came up with a big disclaimer before each viewing saying the content was entirely Lindell’s network. It said the content was based on “opinion only” and not established facts”.
“Mr Lindell is the sole author and executive producer of this program and is solely and exclusively responsible for its content,” the narrator said as he read the displayed text of the disclaimer. “This program is not the product of OANN's reporting.”
you really need to experience the whole disclaimer in full pic.twitter.com/6gz08PD43h
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) February 5, 2021
But the disclaimer still did not make OANN less accountable. Thomas Clare, a legal representative for Dominion Voting Systems which has come under constant attack from the right-wing conspiracy theorists during the 2020 election, said in a statement to Law & Crime that OANN’s disclaimer was a “nice try” but it “does not relieve them of liability”.
Dominion has started taking legal action against those spreading unfounded claims about the election’s integrity, including a $1.3 billion suit against Giuliani and Powell, and it was recently reported that the company is considering filing a similar lawsuit against OANN for its alleged role in spreading falsehoods.
Coming back to Lindell’s controversial film — it provides no proof of the claims he makes, including allegations that Dominion software was manipulated to delete the votes that went to Trump.
He interviewed lawyer Matt DePerno, according to whom, files “deleted from the Dominion System in Antrim County” and it was known to be a fact despite the hand counts of the votes that proved the outcome. Lindell also claimed about other countries’ involvement in the alleged election fraud, like placing of servers overseas and manipulation of votes.